Bayside Singers Last Week at Ocean Park Lutheran Church – photo from Kim Patten’s FB Site
It just wasn’t the same. Granted, it’s a very personal and biased viewpoint, but seeing the Bayside Singers in concert at the Peninsula Church Center yesterday felt a bit ‘off.’ The music was wonderful, the audience receptive, and the program selections—especially the arrangements by Director Barbara Poulshock – were inspired. Still… for me, the event lacked a little something.
It will come as no surprise to those who know me that the ‘missing’ element was the Oysterville Church. Somehow, that’s where the Bayside Singers belong. That’s where they sound best and I might actually go so far as to say that’s where they do their best work. Granted, I am totally narrow minded when it comes to anything and everything Oysterville.
In The Beginning – Oysterville 2010
It’s not even that the Oysterville Church is where the Bayside Singers began. Their first performance involved only a half dozen women singing around the piano at Hal and Diane Buttrell’s when they lived in the Andrews House on Oysterville Road. The occasion was the very first Oysterville Memorial Day Celebration, a tradition also begun by Diane. I’m not sure the group had a name then – it was in 2010, if memory serves.
The little group gathered momentum almost immediately. At first, they were all women and Sandy Nielsen was the director. Their earliest performances were at the 2010 and 2011 Oysterville Music Vespers – probably the reason that the church seemed like home base. As more singers joined, Sandy urged Barbara Poulshock to assume directorial duties, in addition to her role as pianist. Barbara Bate became the accompanist and the group began to perform in other locations now and then.
At Intermission – Dave Aase and Kim Patten with Singer Dobby Wiegardt
By 2014, the Bayside Singers’ numbers had swelled so that they could no long fit on the dais in Oysterville. I think it was last year that they tried “surround sound” by lining the aisles with singers, as well as having them up front. Even I had to admit that something was lost in that configuration.
Yesterday, with a group of 39 singers, the sanctuary at the Peninsula Church Center was probably the perfect fit. I wish I had asked Barbara how she felt about the venue. Or even one of the singers. But I didn’t – probably because I secretly hope that they long for the days when the Oysterville Church, with its bayside vista was the ideal location for a group called the Bayside Singers. Now, if only we could stretch the church to fit…
Yes, Oysterville Church is very special. Actually, Bayside Singers started in 2008 with 6 ladies singing once a week at Sandy Nielsen’s home. We would sing and then gather around the kitchen table with tea and sweets and try to think of a name for our group….eventually coming up with Bayside Singers (Sandy’s home looks out over the bay up in Nahcotta). Our first performance was Christmas 2008 at the Oysterville Church. We did a cantata, Ceremony of Carols by Benjamin Britten.
Thanks for the clarification/correction, Rita. For whatever reason, there is no record in the 2008 church schedule nor in the church scrapbooks of that 2008 cantata, though I have a dim recollection of going to that now that you mention it. i do remember that Sandy had a group called the Sandridge Singers (?) ‘way back when’ which became inactive when she moved from the Peninsula for a few years. It doesn’t surprise me at all that she ‘regrouped’ when she moved back here! (Where there’s Sandy, there’s music and creative groups!) I’m unclear why I’ve always thought the beginnings of the Bayside Singers were at Diane’s. I’ll have to have her refresh my memory about the connection. I’m sure there was one.